Opeth and The Sword @ House of Blues

Opeth – October 2, 2016House of Blues

On their new tour supporting their recently released album Sorceress, Opeth played House of Blues Boston on October 2, with The Sword as their openers.

For about 45 minutes of the show, The Sword opened the audience to their seductive sound that seems completely inspired by the ’70s. This ’70s vibe translated to their on-stage presence, which was lacking unfortunately. However, considering their status as a stoner metal band and their position as an opener, this isn’t surprising. Despite the little presence from the band, they were still entertaining and sounded better than they do on studio albums.

About 20 minutes after The Sword finished their set, Opeth opened their set with the groove heavy, title-track off their new album. An impressive feat of this show was Opeth’s ability to fill the entire venue with their sound and presence, which is essentially if Led Zeppelin decide to play prog metal. Each song on the set transitioned beautifully between melodic and heavy, which is something Opeth are masters of. In between songs, the singer, Mikael, would interact with the crowd, which included light-hearted jokes. At one point, Mikael spoke of his daughter’s love of Justin Bieber and One Direction, and how he tried to like the two for the sake of his daughter, but eventually realized this was impossible for him. Mikael has greatly adopted the status of a strong front man, and he plays it well. The night was a great harmony of heavy, fast, melodic, and slow. Opeth is unmatched in this category, which is why they are so respected in the genre, and this show confirmed why.

Opeth By Jillian Fliedner

The Sword By Jillian Fliedner

Jillian is a Computer Science major from Dallas, Texas, and she is in her third year of college. She's really into bands such as La Dispute, Turnover, Pvris, Deafheaven, or any other gloomy band. Unless it's a band like The Front Bottoms that whines about women not dating them or their hometown; she's definitely not into them.